


The Best Part

by mydogwatson



Series: Once Upon A Time At Xmas [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John's Best Xmas, M/M, together again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5489450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John get to spend Xmas together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Part

**Author's Note:**

> A little late, but here we are. Hope you like!

In every friend we lose a  
Part of ourselves, and the  
Best part.

-Alexander Pope

 

Foolish as it might have seemed, given his rather pathetic personal history with the holiday, John Watson still had some optimistic expectations regarding Xmas. Such expectations were never really a part of his actual experience, but nevertheless…

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he continued to believe that some things were just supposed to be a part of the holiday. There was a list.

Freshly baked and decorated biscuits.  
Carols being badly but enthusiastically sung.  
Bright fairy lights strung everywhere and lumpy stockings hung from the mantel.  
Too much food, too much drink, too much…everything.

That was how it was supposed to be and maybe in some hidden corner of his heart John still believed that one day he would actually have such a Xmas. Not this particular year, obviously.

At the moment, he was considering making a second list.

Things That Are Not A Part Of Xmas.

A stinking, rubbish-filled alleyway.  
Damp socks and shoes and everything, really, because a light icy mist had been falling for nearly an hour.  
A sprained ankle sustained in a mad rooftop chase.  
And two days without sleep or food beyond a few stale donuts and too many cups of bad tea.

Not to mention bloody stake-outs in the aforementioned alley. It had gone on for nearly three hours now and showed no sign of ending anytime soon. And definitely not mentioning the rather dreadful bruise that had spread rapidly across Sherlock’s jaw and cheek. Every time he looked at it, John felt a low thrum of anger that renewed his determination to stay in this alley until he could get his hands on the assassin who’d wielded the bloody metal pipe.

John leant back against the brick wall and closed his eyes just for a moment. It still bemused him to think that this was really his life now. Everything had been so completely insane since the moment Mike Stamford dragged him into the lab at St. Barts and introduced him to Sherlock Holmes.

Not that an introduction was necessary, strictly speaking.

They had just stared at one another, even Sherlock struck wordless by the entirely unlikely realisation that they were actually meeting yet again. It seemed an impossible occurrence.

And yet here they were.  
After those first few moments of stunned silence, Sherlock had gone into his deducing spiel and John had succumbed. If he had stopped to think about it at all, it might have been obvious that he was already in love just a bit.

So he did not---ever---stop to think about it.

What they had, this seemingly fated and undeniably powerful friendship, was enough. More than enough; John never once felt as if he were ‘settling’. He was quite willing to be no more than Sherlock’s friend-colleague-companion and nothing more. All thoughts of running his fingers through tousled curls, of touching those cheekbones out of something other than medical necessity, of planting kisses over every part of that long and slender body…

Stop it, John ordered himself.

All of that was never going to happen and that was fine. Really, it was. He could always find someone to fuck, but he would never find another friend like Sherlock Holmes and that was what mattered. 

John was happy in this life.

Even if he was spending Xmas Eve in a dark and wet alley that smelled like week old garbage and piss, waiting to confront a hired assassin. The one who had put that bruise onto Sherlock’s face and who might have done much worse, given the chance. John’s fingers twitched against the gun in his pocket. The actual goal was to capture the killer alive, but John meant to have his revenge and he didn’t even care that their target was a woman. If nothing else, he would be sure that she had a corresponding bruise.

Suddenly Sherlock nudged him with an elbow. “Don’t go to sleep,” he ordered softly.

“Not going to,” John protested. “Just resting my eyes.”

“Hmm,” was the only reply.

Git. John opened his eyes, mostly so he could glare in Sherlock’s direction. Sadly, it was a wasted glare, because Sherlock was staring at the building again.

So John amused himself for the moment just looking at the profile. He did that a lot and had managed to convince himself that the most observant man in the universe was not completely aware of being stared at. Of being, secretly, rather adored. That little bit of self-deception was necessary if John were going to stay at 221B. And he had to stay there, because in Sherlock’s orbit was where he was meant to be.

“Light just went off,”: Sherlock muttered. “She should be exiting in approximately sixty seconds.”

John’s fingers tightened on the gun, just in case.

Sherlock tightened his scarf and took two steps towards the building’s rear exit. Then he paused. “Oh, by the way, John---”

“What?”

A very faint smile appeared on Sherlock’s face and for a moment, horrid bruise notwithstanding, he looked very much like the boy John had first met so many years ago at that lunch in the church hall. “Happy Xmas.”

Before John could reply, the door opened, a short blonde woman dressed in black emerged, and the moment was lost.

As they ran towards her, John was thinking that this was exactly what Xmas should be.

Although a few biscuits wouldn’t go amiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow: Starlight and Lonesomness


End file.
